8 Great Cycling Books to Read This Summer

Long, sunny days and leftover vacation time make summer the best for reading, riding, and reading about riding. Here are some of our favorite page-turners for when we're not out riding bikes—but still really want to obsess about bikes. (What kind of cycling obsessive are you? Find out in Bike Tribes, our field guide to North American cyclists.)

For a creative look at the Tours of France, Italy, and Spain, pick up a copy of Richard Mitchelson'sGrand Tour. One of cycling's most talented illustrators, Mitchelson and his imagination will take you on a nuanced trip through the history and character of each of the sport's three-week Grand Tour stage races. And don't worry—artisitc skills are not required as Mitchelson has done all the pace-setting already. By the end you'll be a true cycling aficionado.

Written by multi-world and national champion mountain bike racer Rebecca Rusch (with Bicycling’s Selene Yeager), Rusch to Glory contains plenty of tales of riding and racing. But it’s not really about the bike, as they say. It’s about what you can achieve in all walks of life if you have tenacity, perseverance, and the courage to try when you’re afraid of failing. You may never river-board the Grand Canyon in the dead of winter or break records at the Leadville 100. But you’ll turn the last page inspired to face down a few of your own demons and find some adventures yourself.

Check out this firsthand account of an Irishwoman who travels from Ireland to India (via Europe, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan) by bike in 1963. An independent spirit, Murphy deals with pretty much everything you can imagine (including being attacked by wolves in Siberia) and manages to make friends and find beauty the whole way. The writing is honest and comes across as effortless. Murphy doesn’t need to embellish anything—her story is crazy enough as is. To give you an idea of Murphy's personality, the subtitle of her book reads “with a bicycle” because after spending so much time getting to know her bike as a companion, she feels weird about saying she’s "on it."

If you ever cracked a smile watching Jens Voigt being interviewed, this book is for you. Shut Up, Legs!—named for one of his legendary sayings—is Voigt’s memoir of a remarkable pro cycling career that saw the amiable German become a superstar of the sport based as much on his ready smile and willingness to talk to fans and the press as his results on the bike. It’s a fairly traditional autobiography in some senses, but Voigt takes readers from his youth attending a sports school in then-East Germany to the top of the sport, and all the amazing and awful moments in between.

There aren’t many cycling-themed books aimed at teenagers, let alone adolescent girls. So I’m going to go ahead and call this steampunk, feminist, young-adult novel about bike racing a groundbreaking addition to the literary canon. Emmeline Escot wants nothing more than to race bikes at the local velodrome. But in 19th-century Seren—an imaginary city-state that includes elements of both European and American culture—she can’t even spectate at the track without disguising herself as a boy. Lame. But with the help of her twin brother, Gabriel, spirited Emmeline (think of an older, less-goofy Pippi Longstocking) will do her best to make her dream a reality, customs and corsets be damned.

When writer Robert Penn got up the nerve to invest in a custom dream bike, he decided that to fully appreciate the machine, he needed to be present for its entire creation—which proved to be no small feat. Penn recollects the journey in It’s All about the Bike, which pulls double duty as a progress log and an exploration of bike design as a concept. Thorough research, spirited and melodic language, and deft use of personal experience to contextualize insight into bicycle anatomy makes It’s All about the Bike a hell of a read. It's obscure enough to entertain and educate cycling diehards, while accessible enough to inspire the uninitiated and encourage new riders. For anyone seeking out a madcap crash course in cycling design and its history, this book is hard to beat.

'The Story of the Tour de France Volume 1: 1903 - 1964' by Bill McGann

amazon.com

Great for: History buffs

If you've ever wondered about the history of the Tour de France, the first volume of Bill McGann's collection is the place to start. You might think that the Tour of the '90s and '00s was rife with scandal, but the train-hopping, tire-slashing, and beer-drinking of the Tour's first decade was even wilder than the doping era. If you love a good Tolkien reference or want to hear how cycling is akin to French literature from the Middle Ages, read on.

For anyone who's ever dreamed about having the glamorous life of a pro cyclist, Phil Gaimon's Pro Cycling on $10 a Day serves up some realistic—and hilarious—truths. From the uncertain process of finding a team, to dealing with performance setbacks and achievements, to the crazy stuff riders see while traveling, Gaimon provides an engaging portrait of life on the road as a domestic pro. The best part: Even through the toughest moments of his cycling career, Gaimon's dedication to and love for his sport shines through—which is something any rider can relate to, pro or not.

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